Collection activities

Dismantling the bromomethyl plant

People

Preserver of our industrial heritage

Cesare Sgueglia learned to tackle contaminated sites and dispose of toxic residues from scratch when he started his apprenticeship at Sandoz in 1983 and worked for about 10 years remediating the site of Switzerland’s largest chemical spill in Schweizerhalle. His early professional experience shaped both his interest in the heritage of the chemical-pharmaceutical industry and his passion as a collector.

Text by Claudio Beccarelli and Goran Mijuk, Photos by Laurids Jensen

Apparatus for dying by the discontinuous exhaust method (the fiber draws the dye from the liquor).

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Collection activities

Dismantling the bromomethyl plant

Published on 14/04/2022

When Cesare Sgueglia began his apprenticeship as a chemical technician at Sandoz in 1983, he actually dreamed of becoming a musician. "I played rock, jazz and salsa, even outside Switzerland, in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Cuba. But I didn't know whether this would allow me to earn a living. As a second mainstay, I started my apprenticeship at Sandoz."

At Sandoz, chemical technicians were trained for the production processes in Schweizerhalle and familiarized themselves with repair, maintenance and laboratory work in various areas. After his training, he took up a position in agricultural production in 1986.

The fire in Schweizerhalle on November 1, 1986, also changed Cesare Sgueglia's life. A week after the accident, employees were needed to secure and clean the site. The then 19-year-old volunteered. His idea: to avoid working night shifts in the future and then play music with his band.

And so, for the next ten years, Sgueglia worked in various capacities to remediate the site. An inconspicuous construction container served him and his colleagues as office and cafeteria. When work was completed in 1996, he was offered the opportunity to develop a waste and disposal concept for Sandoz.

While working on the concept, he continued his education as a nature and environmental specialist in Biel. At the same time, Sandoz merged with Ciba to form Novartis, while the chemicals operations were spun off in the new company Clariant.

Distillation apparatus; made by Büchi AG.

Collection activities

The creation of the disposal and waste concept also marked the beginning of Cesare Sgueglia's collection activities. During his work, he repeatedly came into contact with objects that were destined to be carelessly thrown away, even though many of these items were of great historic importance.

In 1997, Sgueglia was called to an old production building at the St. Johann site to dispose of some decommissioned machines. However, Sgueglia did not want to see the building demolished and the items inside disposed of.

While he was unable to prevent the demolition of the production facilities, which dated back to time of predecessor company Durand Huguenin, he did manage to save some historically valuable items from being scrapped, such as a large stirrer. It was then that he also met Peter Tschudin from the Paper Museum in Basel and Walter Dettwiler from the Novartis company archive, who suggested that he open a museum.

Over the next two years, he collected and rescued so many items that in 1999 he set up the Unicum Museum in Schweizerhalle, which over the years became a veritable place of pilgrimage for industrial enthusiasts, where Sgueglia lived out his passion for almost 20 years.

The museum not only housed old laboratory and production equipment. Sgueglia also collected computers, books and fabric samples whose historical value is inestimable, including one of the first Apple computers. Many specimens were also given to Sgueglia by former colleagues who learned of his collecting activities, hoping to save their memories for prosperity.

In 2019, however, the museum was closed, but only because Sgueglia was pursuing a bigger dream....

Expertise in demand

Sgueglia fondly remembers the first item in his collection. "A Sandoz employee brought me a wooden box that he had used to transport samples from one laboratory to another. When he then retired and found no more use for the wooden box, he handed it to me. He said he wanted to prevent it from being simply disposed of. This one would have history, after all."

Sgueglia not only collects objects, but also writes down the related stories of their owners. What began by simply moving some items aside to save them from destruction has taken on considerable dimensions.

In his spare time, Cesare Sgueglia has recorded and inventoried a myriad of items. "Exactly how many items I own, I don't know. Of the reset samples from 19th-century dye production alone - these are color samples that were put on one side at the time as proof of quality before export - I own more than a thousand."

A particular showpiece of his collection is the object with archive number 1251, an exposure device from the time of dye production by Atlas Electric Device & Co. of Chicago. This device, which looks more like an antiquated satellite, was used at the time to determine the lightfastness of textile dyes by irradiating them with carbon lamp light. The 3000-watt carbon arc lamp has the same light spectrum as the sun, but with a much higher irradiation intensity. This exposure unit was purchased by Sandoz AG in 1951 and was in operation at Clariant until the 1990s.

Determination of the light fastness of textile dyeings by irradiation with carbon lamp light. The carbon arc lamp used here with approx. 3000 watts has the same light spectrum as the sun, but with considerably higher irradiation intensity in the light wavelength range from 350 to 450 nm.

Dismantling the bromomethyl plant

The expertise of Cesare Sgueglia, a skilled craftsman, is called upon time and again. When the historic bromomethyl plant from Building 129 had to be dismantled on the Klybeck site, Sgueglia, together with his son Andrea and Reto Furler, a locksmith from Basel, dismantled the plant in two weeks and then drew up detailed plans for its reconstruction.

Just as in his profession as a waste disposal expert, where Sgueglia is keen to ensure that materials can be recycled and returned to the working cycle wherever possible, he also aims to preserve the industrial heritage of the chemical-pharmaceutical industry.

"I often had the opportunity to sell certain items from my collection for a lot of money. But this does not interest me. I always think ahead and want to make the objects and their stories accessible to future generations. I already have my museum in mind."

New perspectives

For now, plans for a larger museum are still in the drawer, as are most of his collectibles, which, neatly packed away, await their next destination on the Novartis Campus.

Novartis has shown interest in exhibiting the objects. Together with Walter Dettwiler, head of the Novartis corporate archives, Sgueglia would like to prepare the items in such a way that they can be presented to a larger audience, thus saving important achievements of the industrial revolution from oblivion.

While the coronavirus pandemic has thrown the timetable for a possible implementation somewhat into disarray, Sgueglia is convinced the museum will one day become a reality in one form or another. "Sometimes you just have to be patient and let things take their course. While things don't always turn out the way you want them to, I never lose sight of my goal," Sgueglia says confidently.

It was a similar story with the Goliath harbor crane, which Sgueglia saved from being scrapped around 10 years ago and stored temporarily in Huningue, France. For years, no one was interested in the steel colossus, which for decades unloaded shiploads for Novartis and its predecessor companies, until the company brought it back to life at the kickoff of the Klybeck-Plus urban development project, as a symbol of the neighborhood's industrial past.

"I did have a vision of Goliath being put back up on the original side of the Rhine. But that's just the way it is. But to see the crane on the Klybeck bank is just as beautiful and serves the same purpose. It allows people to appreciate the achievements of the past," Sgueglia said.

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